Centre cancels licences of 1,142 NGOs to receive foreign funds

New Delhi: Cracking down on erring NGOs, government has cancelled licences of 1,142 NGOs belonging to undivided Andhra Pradesh, under which they get foreign funds, for not filing their annual returns for three consecutive years.

The foreigners division of the Home Ministry has served notices to NGOs on October 16, 2014 for not filing their returns for 2009-10, 2010-11 and 2011-12 under the Foreign Contribution (Reg0ulation) Act and given time to reply within 30 days.

As many as 510 notices have been returned by the postal authorities undelivered due to various reasons, including shifting of the address.

There is no reply from the remaining 632 NGOs.

Exercising the power conferred by Section 14 of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act 2010, the central government cancelled certificate of registration of 1,142 NGOs that include 510 organisations to whom notices were sent but returned undelivered and 632 NGOs from whom no reply has been received to the notices within the stipulated period, an order issued by Joint Secretary in the Home Ministry G K Dwivedi said.

Early this month, government has said that 69 NGOs have been blacklisted from receiving foreign funds after finding faults in different aspects.

Among those NGOs which were prohibited from receiving the foreign funds include 14 from Andhra Pradesh, 12 from Tamil Nadu, five each from Gujarat and Odisha, four each from Uttar Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Kerala and three from Delhi.

Government had also initiated action against 26 NGOs in current fiscal after finding "irregularities" in receiving foreign contribution while 14 foreign donors have been placed under prior approval category.

On February 25, government told Parliament that more than 31,000 NGOs were served notices for not filing annual returns on their foreign contribution.

In 2011-12, notices were sent to 21,493 associations which were found to have not submitted annual returns under Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act 2010 for 2006-07, 2007-08 and 2008-09.

In 2014, notices were issued to 10,343 associations which had not filed annual returns for 2009-10 to 2011-12.